TO CAELIA; ODE by CHARLES COTTON

I

GIVE me my heart again (fair Treachery)
You ravished from me with a smile,
Oh! let it in some nobler quarrel die
Than a poor trophy of your guile.
And faith (bright Caelia) tell me, what should you,
Who are all falsehood, do with one so true?

II

Or lend me yours awhile instead of it,
That I in time my skill may try,
Though ill I know it will my bosom fit,
To teach it some fidelity;
Or that it else may teach me to begin
To be to you what you to me have been.

III

False and imperious Caelia, cease to be
Proud of a conquest is your shame,
You triumph o'er an humble enemy,
Not one you fairly overcame.
Your eyes alone might have subdued my heart,
Without the poor confed'racy of art.

IV

But to the pow'r of Beauty you must add
The witchcraft of a sigh and tear:
I did admire before, but yet was made
By those to love; they fix'd me there:
I else, as other transient lovers do,
Had twenty lov'd e'er this as well as you.

V

And twenty more I did intend to love,
E'er twenty weeks are past and gone,
And at a rate so modish, as shall prove
My heart a very civil one:
But oh (false Fair!) I thus resolve in vain,
Unless you give me back my heart again.

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